


Barry Allen: The Enigma

by ItsStillBeating



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 17:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsStillBeating/pseuds/ItsStillBeating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A High school! AU about Iris West the overachiever and Barry Allen, the quiet stuck-up nerd who has always been her arch-nemesis. She can't understand why she wants to be noticed by him so much until one day Cisco Ramon takes her aside and tells her to get her shit together. Hilarity ensues.</p><p>'After years of fixating on Barry, Iris’ friend Shonda’s comment ‘You sure spend a lot of time thinking about Allen, Iris’ made her realise that she didn’t hate him anymore.  She couldn’t really, it was impossible. She hadn’t even hated him on that fateful day in elementary school, or before that. She’d always been intrigued by him.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barry Allen: The Enigma

They'd been enemies since grade school. Iris had been twelve years old and they’d been graduating sixth grade. Their school was a preparatory school that chose a valedictorian for the graduating elementary class in order to inspire academic rigor at a young age. Iris thrived well under pressure. She liked impressing teachers with her verbal acuity and then moving in with her knockout punch of flawless grades. It was linked to a specific psychological quirk in which she wanted to _prove_ to her father that she could do _anything_. She didn't ever want to give him reason to doubt her. At the transitory age of  twelve Iris felt sheltered and she guessed that it wouldn’t get any better if she proved herself to be a delinquent. So she resigned herself to perfectionism hoping one day he'd notice how mature she was.

When the drum roll sounded and the principal announced that he was ''...proud to announce that the sixth grade valedictorian for 2001 was...''she’d straightened up her spine and reached back to smooth her ponytail and prayed. Her prayers were answered spectacularly, but not quite in the way she had been expecting. Whilst the principal’s booming voice did announce ‘Iris West!’ to roaring applause, that wasn't the end of his sentence. Through the haze of applause he continued speaking, ‘…and Barry Allen!’ to a second, smaller applause. When Barry had shuffled up to take his prize he hadn’t met her eye and Iris  been vindicated in her immediate dislike of him. She tried for a handshake and he limply offered his hand, then shoved it deeply back into his pocket with a grimace.

She’d decided that they didn’t have to be friends. Even though she felt  slighted by the fact that he wouldn’t say two consecutive words in reply to her constant chatter.  She wasn’t going to be enemies with him. She was going to be mature about her jealousy and rise above it.

But then they ended up going to the same middle school and everything changed. Now, after she answered a question in classteachers would pause and say ‘That’s very… _interesting,_ Iris’ or ‘Good girl!’ and then look expectantly around the class for more.

Iris was no longer uncontested.

When people whispered about who they thought the smartest people in the year were she came up after they’d gone down a list of boys. Barry Allen was always one of those boys. She couldn't escape his presence. It seemed as though everytime she turned around there he was. Their lockers were next to each other and she'd always catch him looking through the holes in the grate at her. Whenever the results for a test were posted up on the wall and she inspected them he'd be there, either with the same score or within three percent of it. English was the only subject she clearly bested him at and though it was _something_ it wasn't _enough,_ especially since she was working her ass off to get three percent less than his effortless scores in chemistry, physics and maths. It got to her that she couldn’t seem to get him to like or respect her or even _talk to her_. She just wanted him to acknowledge that she was brilliant, because she despite herself always acknowledged the same about him in her head.

After years of fixating on Barry, Iris’ friend Shonda’s comment ‘You sure spend _a lot_ of time thinking about Allen, Iris’ made her realise that she didn’t hate him anymore.  She couldn’t really, it was impossible. She hadn’t even hated him on that fateful day in elementary school, or before that. She’d always been _intrigued_ by him. He was different from the other boys in her class. He wasn’t big and brash and loud and casually sexist. He was soft and shy and smart. He read big paperback books about science fiction universes and explained them patiently in loving detail to people who asked what they were about. He was quiet but his actions spoke for themselves. In contrast, Iris was so outspoken that she’d assumed that he’d never want to be friends with someone like her.  When he’d taken the Valedictorian title from her and then refused her advances at friendship it had been like further proof. Barry Allen was to an enigma forever to her, and what do you do to solve a problem? You study it. That was clearly what Iris had been doing for all these years.

They talked, sure,it was impractical to go to the same small elementary, middle, and high schools without ever speaking a word to one another. Added to the fact that they were always present for the same prize-giving ceremonies and teachers and students constantly pitted them against one another, never speaking became an impossible concept. But their conversations were far from what Iris imagined. They usually consisted of Iris trying and failing to not come on too strong. Social interactions had always come easily to her, but not, it seemed, for him. He always blushed and stammered and looked around anxiously when she tried to interact. At first she’d thought that maybe he was just shy but then she realised that he was fine with other people. His best friends, Cisco and Felicity, were always laughing with him and ruffling his hair and he seemed to like it. With other people he wasn’t close to he was at least civil, and he wasn’t afraid in class to speak up or make a point--her friends had relayed instances of him correcting teachers and then apologising. But whenever he was around her it was like a quiet fell over him and he became the blushing, stammering being she’d always interacted with. Iris guessed that it was an aftereffect of him being around someone he clearly _hated._ She tried to ignore how said that made her.

Iris eventually figured out a way that she could _actually_ communicate with him in a Biology lesson in junior year. Barry had raised his hand slowly and inquired about courtship behaviours and whether it was usually the male member of the species that initiated contact. Mr Jones had made an insensitive joke (‘Ah, yes! The man of the species always has to do the hard work.’) and Iris had involuntarily felt her hand smack up into the air.

‘Yes, Miss West?’

‘Well, I just wanted to say that I think Barry Allen is _completely_ full of crap!’ She’d started, to hear the sound of necks snapping towards her as everyone in the class seemed to simultaneously wake up. ‘We study a really small selection of animals in these classes, and with no disrespect to you, Mr. Jones, I _don’t_ really think it’s your place to make big wide sweeping statements about the animal kingdom. We have a lot of information about animals and their behaviours that is incredibly antiquated because it was collected by men that were extremely sexist and racist, and so I think we should wait until their research is more rigorously checked to go ahead with making sweeping statements about what the ‘man of the species’ has to do.’

Every eye in the room was on her. Their expressions ranged from shocked to impressed to scared.  She had a reputation as the sweetest girl in the school but that didn’t negate her other reputation as the fiercest debater ever to grace the halls. ‘It’s silly to say that the man _has_ to make the first move anyways when it comes to relationships! I mean no one should be a total wimp when they like someone, but it should be a 50/50 effort and I think most of the girls _and_ guys in here would agree with me on that point.’ finished Iris, straightening in her chair and fixing the inhabitants of her class with cold stares.

She’d resigned herself to the reality of monthly detentions during the ten second pause after her speech. She couldn’t bring herself to care though, she was flushed with effort and defiant and she knew she was right. But then clapping started, and Mr Jones’ authority seemed to dissapate as he awkwardly apologised for offending her and tried to quiet the class down. It wasn’t until after class that she realised exactly what she’d done to her relationship with Barry.

Barry ran to catch up with her, all long legs and limbs that seemed to follow after them after a delay. He was really tall but he didn’t square up to her like most boys did when they disagreed with her. He just fixed her with his bright green eyes and said in an incensed voice, ‘I didn’t mean it like _that_.’ In possibly the first instance in which he’d talked to her without blushing or stammering, ‘That’s not it… _at all.’_ Without thinking Iris had fixed him just as boldly with her eyes and said, ‘What is it then?’ and Barry had stumbled and stammered and made an excuse and run off.

But he’d _looked_ at her. He’d communicated with her, and he _clearly respected her_. So despite the return of his inability to speak to her that sort of made the whole thing worth it.

Three weeks later, Cisco had approached her in the lunch line. After some small talk about comic books he’d slipped in, in the least smooth fashion ‘So, ah…how do you _feel_ about Barry?’

‘What?’ she’d said genuinely caught off guard.

‘ _What_?’ he’d replied back,

‘What do you mean by ‘how do I _feel’_ about Barry?’ she said, unsure if she could trust him. Cisco was a really cool guy. They’d danced together at a few parties and they often joked together when they were paired up in group projects but everyone knew he was Barry’s best friend, and she wasn’t too sure she could trust him with the conflicted and messy feelings she had inside her head for Barry Allen.

‘That’s exactly what I meant Iris, I’m just...Ah…curious I guess.’

‘Well… Barry and I went to the same elementary school and the same middle school.’ She’d started experimentally and Cisco had started nodding. ‘ _What?_ How did you know that?’

‘I’m one of Barry’s main boys, Iris. He told me.’

‘He... he _talks about me?’_ she’d said, and Cisco had giggled, and said, in a knowing voice

‘You could say that.’ then he’d schooled his features into the same casual expression they’d been in previously, ‘so ah... my boy Barry... how you feel about him… you were saying.’

‘Well yeah. So we went to school together all our lives and we’ve always been like… around each other I guess so I know of him. He seems _really smart_ and really um… shy I guess. But maybe the shy stuff was just when he was younger. Um… yeah... what more can I say, shy and smart and um… I guess I don’t know a lot about him because we were never really close…’ she peeked at Cisco, slightly embarrassed with how much she revealed and realised he was listening intently, ‘I guess he um… doesn’t like me or something. I guess I just rub him the wrong way, I don’t know. But it’s not fair for him to not like me just because he’s really good at everything. I get that he’s tall and smart and whatever but that doesn’t mean that I’m not… smart as well…’

Cisco’s eyes had widened to comic proportions at Iris’ indignant monologue and he’d started shaking his head rapidly. ‘Iris! It’s… it’s literally so far from that that it’s hilarious.’ then he’d looked shiftily through the cafeteria entrance, where Barry and Felicity stood, clearly looking for him. ‘Let’s take a walk!’

Iris and Cisco ended up sitting on the steps outside of the Chemistry labs, where people usually came to hang out because they were so desolate. Iris didn’t really know why she was here now- her knees bunched together to stop her pleated skirt from riding up and her sandwich in her hand- with Cisco. She figured it was because Barry had always been such an elusive and mysterious figure to her and now suddenly… there was an opportunity to _know_ him a bit better, and she couldn’t pass that up. Also, slightly because Cisco was really, _really_ cute and when a hot guy asked her to come up to the steps outside of the Chemistry labs, with his big brown eyes, she found it really difficult to say no.

‘ _So…’_ she started, slightly annoyed, because she did have things to do in the library and she had cheerleading practice after school and that meant that if this dragged on much longer she was going to have to get home from four hours of tendon stretching and athletic jumping to start on two hours of Calculus homework, which she was _not_ looking forward to.

Cisco looked over, slightly shiftily. ‘Iris, I um… Barry didn’t tell me to tell you this or anything, but I feel like I’d be a really bad friend and wingman if I didn’t tell you the truth before this got any more complicated.’

‘ _Wingman_ , what?’ said Iris, completely confused.

‘Look just... just listen. Barry. He… okay imagine this. I’m thirteen and I meet this guy Barry, and we become really good friends and he’s hanging around this girl Felicity, and so I assume that they’re like… an item, which is cool because I’m totally into that Laurel girl in my Home Econ class…’

‘Laurel Lance? She’s really, _really_ smart and hot and nice and pretty. She’s the head cheerleader, so I hang out with her a lot…’

‘Dude, I know she’s all of those things but that was when I was thirteen.’

‘I’m just saying, I could probably hook you up with her if you wanted…’

‘Wait, really? You’d do that?’ Cisco’s face adopted a completely dazed look for a few seconds as he thought of Laurel, and then he caught himself, ‘This isn’t even about that! Totally give Laurel my number though ‘cause she’s _amazing_ but seriously this is about Barry, not me.’

 ‘Noted.’

‘Okay, so yeah, I assumed he was going out with Felicity, but as I became closer friends with Barry and Felicity, I just realised it wasn’t that sort of thing with them. Like they’re _so_ close that them going out is totally _Flowers In The Attic,_ if you catch my drift.’

‘Okay… but what does that have to do with anything?’ said Iris, trying to ignore the tiny leap in her heart that Barry and Felicity weren’t secretly having freaky nerd sex behind the bleachers or something.

‘Wait! Just let me finish, I’m releasing loads of covert information and I need to do it right!’ Iris nodded soberly in reply, intrigued.

‘So, we’re at the _height_ of puberty at this point, and so I spent ages talking to Barry about how much I wanted a girlfriend and who was hot and just… guy stuff I guess.’

‘Girls talk about that stuff too!’

‘Noted. But anyways, Barry always talked vaguely, and he’s a _real old_ romantic. He always talked about how much he wanted to get married and have kids someday, which is cool and all but a bit weird when you’re fourteen. But he was never really interested in anyone, so I didn’t really know what was going on, but then when we were fifteen I was in this specific American Literature class and I noticed something… Barry completely changed when he was in this class. He spent most of his time looking aimlessly at the board, and the rest of his time doodling hearts in his book, and so I figured he had a thing for someone in the class, and I _really, really_ wanted to know.’

Iris remembered that American Literature class; she’d been in it and had spent countless minutes looking at Barry’s surly face as he scribbled notes into his notebook.

‘So, after school each day I talked about how hot one of the girls in the class was, and I like made my way through the front row and I got like… no response from him. Like, he was like… alright with talking about it I guess, but he wasn’t really into it, but then one day I talked about how hot you were, because let’s face it you are _really hot_ and he started blushing and shaking and said I shouldn’t say that and it was disrespectful. Then he actually punched me on the shoulder and wouldn’t talk to me for a week.’

Iris felt her heart hammer in her chest.

‘Barry _punched you?’_

‘Literally there wasn’t even a bruise, but he was really into it….’ laughed Cisco before taking a breath and continuing,  ‘then after that week I apologised and let him know what I was doing and he like… bursts into tearsand tells me about how he’s known you since you were ten. How he’s been in love with you for _all that time_ and how he can’t think when you’re around, and how he doesn’t want to tell anyone because then you’d find out….’ Iris felt her face audibly freeze at his words as he continued with ‘…and it was true, dude! Like it made _so much sense_ , he was quiet and blushing so much because you talked so damn much in that class. Like, I saw him reading _The Taming of The Shrew_ after a lesson where you talked about it, it was the saddest thing I’d ever seen, and he looked like he wanted to kill himself after three pages. But like… he did it because he’s totally crazy about you… but get this… he thinks _you_ hate _him.’_

Iris felt her mouth drop open. Of all of the things she’d considered over these countless years one possibility she’d never even slightly entertained was the fact that Barry didn’t hate her… that he liked her much, _much_ more than he’d ever let on.

She felt herself blushing and smiling and she couldn’t reply to Cisco because she didn’t really know how she felt. She wasn’t angry or sad or weirded out, the opposite actually. She was happy and fluttering and flustered and she didn’t quite know how to deal with that right now.

‘The reason I came to talk to you this morning is because whatever you did in that Biology lesson has Barry _obsessed,_ man! Like, he came out of that class muttering about how you _hate_ him and how you’re so smart and confident that you’d never want him anyways. Then the dude starts reading about feminist critiques of Biology and planning to plant it in the next lesson and it’s ridiculous to be with him. He’s either going _crazy_ soppy about how you looked at him after class and how pretty you looked and how amazing you were when you were talking or he’s freaking _catatonic_ because he’s convinced you think he’s the scum of the earth and would never love someone like him, and I didn’t know it but when I started talking about you about how you felt about him you started blushing and stammering and saying things that didn’t make sense and I… if this isn’t too much of an intrusion… I feel like you might feel… _the same_.’

Iris was shell-shocked. It was like every impossibility that she’d held on to for years had suddenly crashed down around her. Barry didn’t hate her, she didn’t hate him… they _loved_ each other. It made sense, all of the glances, and blushing and the fact that he was always around. The fact that she knew the precise shade of green in his eyes and loved hearing him speak in class and always forced teachers to talk about him to her. He made her breathless, nervous and strangely _giddy._ He made her nervously laugh, and blush and talk too much.

The enigma was solved, she was in love with Barry Allen and she was okay with it.

 

 

The next day after Biology, it was Iris that ran to catch up with Barry.

She’d planned to start with something subtle like ‘So I hear you love me! At first I didn’t know that and so I’m sorry I was really mean to you for like all our lives, but last night I realised I’m not _mad_ at you. I can’t stop thinking about you because I love you too, and I have since we were twelve’ but he beat her to it.

Barry saw her running towards him and he stopped, turned, took a deep breath and grasped her hands more strong-willed than he’d ever been with her. ‘Hey, um… _Iris.’_ he said nervously, cradling her name like a spell in his mouth,‘I...um... I know there might be some _uncleared air_ around us but I um… I’m _really sorry_ about it.’ His eyes bored into hers as he continued to grasp her hands, ‘I don’t… not like you or disagree with you. I think you’re the smartest most _amazing_ girl I’ve ever met and I uh… I’m just kind of bad at showing that I guess, so if that hasn’t come across over the years it’s my fault and…I’m really sorry but I’d like to be friends.’

‘You’d like to be friends?’ squealed Iris,

‘I mean, if you wanted to!’ said Barry, backpedalling quickly and loosening his grip on her hands,

‘No, _I do_! I’m sorry if I gave you that vibe as well. I think you’re a really smart…amazing guy as well and… you know what, do you like coffee?’

‘Yes!’ lied Barry, beaming down at her and retightening his grip,

‘Well, I know this place…do you want to come get some coffee with me after school, maybe…maybe to talk?she’d said returning the intensity of his smile.

Barry grinned slightly, and nodded, with a gleam of excitement appearing in his eyes. He looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him and after she’d given him her number and they’d planned to meet he said, ‘ _Thank you.’_ quietly and bounded off towards Felicity, who exaggeratedly winked at Iris and held a big thumbs up towards her.

Iris figured they’d take it slow for a while. She knew they had a ton in common, and she’d heard him talk enough to know that this was going to be the start of something amazing. She figured she’d leave, ‘I _love_ you, you’re the most adorable nerd I’ve ever met and I’m so, _so_ glad we’re finally together, and I know you love me too’, for a little later…


End file.
